- She was a driven,
- She was a driven, young intern
in the most powerful city in the world.
- Washington, D.C.
It's a magnet for young, ambitious people.
- For Chandra, it probably was like going to Hollywood
and being discovered.
- Chandra Levy made some influential friends.
- We're getting information that Chandra had a connection
to this Congressman, Gary Condit.
Chandra had finished up her internship,
and she was getting ready to move back to California.
- Then, she suddenly disappeared.
- This is serious. We need to find her.
- A year after she went missing.
Chandra was found...
murdered.
- The shock...
can't relive it, it's already too hard.
- Why were there setbacks in the police investigation?
- The detectives went on her computer
to check her search history.
- Were mistakes made? By whom?
- Turned out to cause problems later.
- What happened when the case went to trial?
- I pointed to him, and I said, "Did you kill my daughter?"
- Did Chandra's real killer get away with murder?
- He was a big suspect.
- This is a story that made national headlines,
and is still one of the biggest mysteries ever
to come out of the nation's capital.
- There's probably a credible witness out there
who knows something.
- I'm Soledad O'Brien.
This is "Mysteries and
Who killed Chandra Levy?"
- It was a vicious crime
that set off a media firestorm
and still confounds investigators to this day.
On May 22, 2002, the badly decomposed body
of a young woman is discovered in a remote area
of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.
This victim has been missing for a year.
Chandra Levy was a 24 year old grad student
who'd landed a prestigious internship
in the nation's capital.
After Chandra disappeared,
the press reported a possible relationship
with California Congressman Gary Condit.
Condit has always maintained
they were not romantically involved.
Did the media coverage sway the investigation?
Was Chandra the victim of a random act of violence?
Or was the killer someone close to her?
- Washington, D.C.
It's a magnet for young, ambitious people
to come to make their marks.
It's a thrilling town.
It's filled with power and intrigue,
and every summer it's overwhelmed by interns
much like Chandra.
- I first met Chandra when we were attending USC together.
We were in a master's program, Public Policy.
Chandra was interning with the Bureau of Prisons.
So this was exactly in line with what she wanted to do.
She was finding what interested her.
- Chandra, she seem to enjoy it.
It's different kind of a lifestyle,
and she found it exciting.
- She went to D.C.
because she wanted to be where the action was
and perhaps get into the FBI.
I think she enjoyed it.
She said it was pretty competitive, you know,
with women there but that's the way it is in D.C.
- I was recently promoted in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Chandra was one of the first people that I actually met.
Chandra was very energetic, lively, positive.
She certainly wasn't reserved or shy.
- Chandra was following the rules of any good internship
which is to take full advantage of your time in D.C.
Network, meet people, and explore,
and just immerse yourself
in just this thrilling environment.
- Chandra Levy spent her mornings at events
hosted by powerful lawmakers
and her nights a popular Capitol Hill bars.
Then on May 1, 2001,
she disappeared.
- Chandra had finished up her internship,
and she was getting ready to move back to California.
She was seeing friends saying goodbye.
- She was scheduled to be back for her May 11th graduation
from USC.
- She's emailed her parents
a day or two before.
She's packed up. She's ready to go.
- The events of that day, May 1st,
Chandra was up late doing searches on a Amtrak schedule
out to California.
She was on her computer.
At 4:30 in the morning,
there was a 911 placed to the police from her building.
The neighbor said, "I just heard a scream."
The police came and responded.
They looked around. They didn't see anything.
- Investigators never determined the source
of the scream.
- Called her like May 1st or 2nd,
and she didn't answer her phone.
And then I called her after that
and kept calling and never got any answers.
- We picked up my mom and we were supposed to be
at the graduation.
I said, "We haven't heard from her.
This is really weird.
This doesn't sound like her.
Where are we supposed to meet?"
Something was wrong.
- This is serious.
Because there's no way
she would have missed her graduation.
We need to find her.
- This is a young woman who, while growing independent,
was still close to her family.
After four or five days,
Dr. Levy had been growing increasingly distraught
at Chandra's dropping from sight,
called Washington Police, said that his daughter
had not been heard from.
- I think they had to call twice.
The second time the police did go by
and discovered that she wasn't there.
- They decided to get a search warrant
and go into her house and do a more thorough search.
That was about one week after she went missing.
- Her apartment was very neat, orderly.
A blanket on the floor is out of place.
- The apartment looked like Chandra was packing up
getting ready to leave.
They did find her computer.
- All her normal stuff to carry around
a wallet, an ID, cell phone, change,
everything was laying around on desktops.
- I had heard that she didn't take her keys with her.
That's unusual.
I was thinking in my mind,
maybe she opened the door for somebody that she knew.
- What people have to remember
that adults are allowed to go missing.
If they had walked into her apartment
and found blood all over the floor,
then it would have been a full-court press.
But it didn't happen in this case.
- According to police, in the time it took
to get a search warrant, some important evidence was lost.
- The apartment complex had security cameras
that captured people coming in and out
of the apartment building.
The delay from when she was first reported missing
until they went back and did the search warrant
was such that they missed that camera footage.
It was recycled over.
- In a case like this, had they jumped on it right away,
they would have probably recovered more video.
- Police performed an initial search
of the surrounding area including Rock Creek Park,
a popular wilderness spot a few miles from her apartment.
But they never found any sign of Chandra Levy.
- The Levys began looking
through Chandra's cell phone records,
and they found multiple phone calls to D.C.
One of them was a number for the office
of Congressman Gary Condit.
Seeing the phone number there on the cell phone records
struck the Levys as something that needed to followed up on.
- Chandra didn't work with Condit.
She interned for the Bureau of Prisons,
but her phone records showed she spoke with the Congressman
throughout her time in D.C.
Gary was speed-dial number seven.
- Chandra talked to him on the phone.
She was pretty secretive about it.
I didn't know if she thought it would lead to anything or not.
Maybe she did.
- Gary Condit denied having any involvement whatsoever
with her romantically.
- Gary Condit was a career politician
who was really coming into his own.
He'd been in public office for 20 or 30 years.
- Hi, how are you doing? Nice to see you.
- Gary Condit was a California Congressman on the rise.
But what about Chandra Levy,
the young woman who captured the attention
of an entire nation when she vanished.
- Chandra was born April 14, 1977.
We lived in Modesto, California.
Her name was "Little Lady Bug,"
and mine was "Big Cheese," so...
we remember her by that.
She was sort of shy.
Yeah, you know, like little girls tend to be shy.
- She was shy.
I remember I was worried about her.
And it wasn't until her junior year in high school,
she just had a complete turn around, and she was involved
in an explorer officer program.
- She really liked going out with the cops on their beat.
That's why--one reason she later on
wanted to go into law enforcement.
- She always wanted to go to USC,
and she did the Public Administration
Master's Program, which was three sections of internships
They told her that she's getting to Washington, D.C.
and Department of Justice.
- In the fall of 2000,
23-year-old Chandra moved to an apartment
in Dupont Circle, the heart of the city.
- In some ways it was ground zero
for the classic D.C. experience.
It's open night and day.
It's an area that never sleeps.
- She was determined to make the most of her time
in the nation's capital.
- Jennifer Baker, friend from school, and Chandra
decided to go up on Capitol Hill
and visit the local Congressman Gary Condit.
- Just so happened, one day,
Chandra shows up at his office.
They got photos and...
that's how it started.
- Congressman Condit himself came out
of his inner sanctum and introduced himself.
Jennifer Baker said she was interested in an internship,
and the Congressman offered her one on the spot.
Sometime after that, October or so of 2000,
Chandra came to visit her friend Jennifer
who is by then interning,
and she had a further conversation
with Congressman Condit.
- According to Chandra's friends and family,
Chandra's D.C. experience changed her.
- We saw each other during our classes
which were in Sacramento on the weekends.
She flew in from D.C.
When we saw her, she was completely transformed.
She had highlights in her hair.
She was dressing differently.
So then that piqued my interest.
I was asking her, "Chandra, what's going on?
Is there a man in your life?
Something has to be different."
And she began to open up,
trying to tell me as much as she could
without naming a name.
For Chandra, it probably was like going to Hollywood
and being discovered.
- Chandra was involved in a relationship.
She never mentioned the name of the gentleman.
What she did mention is her level of attachment
in the relationship
and the hopes that she had for the relationship.
- Immediately when I found out Chandra was missing
I thought it had to do something
with the relationship she was in.
- Gary Condit has always maintained
that he had a close friendship with Chandra,
but it wasn't romantic,
and he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
- Missing woman,
possible romantic entanglement with a powerful Congressman,
the story had it all.
And as a result, it was chased after by every manner
of reporter high and low.
- I covered it along with every major news outlet
that picked up the Chandra Levy story
which put more pressure on the D.C. police
to step up their investigation.
Who was Gary Condit?
And were authorities pursuing the right leads?
Plus, Chandra's mother meets with Congressman Condit.
And later the Levys share never-before-seen footage
of their daughter.
- Washington, D.C. intern Chandra Levy vanished
on May 1, 2001.
Within a week, her frantic parents flew to the capital
to try to raise the visibility of the case.
- The Levys did get offers from a number of people,
including Gary Condit's office, to post a reward
for information leading to the discovery
of where she might be.
- So Dr. Levy called Gary Condit.
Congressman said that he knew Chandra,
but not well, and promised to do whatever he could
to help out.
- Told him she was missing and wanted to ask his help,
but he sounded fairly shocked about it.
He did offer to help.
- Gary Condit was a married Congressman
from Chandra's home district in California.
- Gary Condit, he had risen from mayor of a small town
called Ceres.
He was at heart a conservative,
a leader of a group called the Blue Dog Democrats.
- Did I hear you say that you speak one unified position?
- By 2001, Gary Condit was really on the rise.
- Detectives were getting information
that Chandra had a connection
to this Congressman, Gary Condit.
He initially denied having any involvement.
- I don't respond to tabloids.
- It was already starting to circulate in the public realm
that Chandra was involved with somebody
maybe powerful, maybe famous.
I honestly don't remember the first news organization
that identified Congressman Condit
as the man she was allegedly involved with.
- Once that information began to get leaked to the media,
it just exploded,
and everybody was focusing in on Condit.
The media was surrounding him.
- He reportedly told them
that she had spent time in his apartment.
When one of the detectives
asked if they were having a sexual relationship,
Congressman Condit reportedly said he didn't see why
that had any bearing on the investigation.
- After the first interview of Condit,
the police announced that he wasn't a suspect.
- There was a lot of pressure put on the police department
by the media to do something.
I think at some point, the police did want this thing
to go away.
- But it wasn't going away.
Despite the announcement that Condit wasn't a suspect,
he was interviewed two more times
on June 23 and on July 6, 2001.
- I think we need to know more about his relationship
with Miss Levy and what insight he might have
to her mindset.
- Detectives searched Condit's apartment on July 11th,
two months after Chandra disappeared.
They found no evidence related to Chandra.
This didn't seem to appease the media or the public.
- Condit could have been arrested
if my department believed that they had enough probable cause
to arrest him.
I don't really think that they ever got close
to even having probable cause.
There just wasn't enough there.
- Questions began arising if Mr. Condit,
he could set all the suspicions at rest
by taking a polygraph.
His defense attorney at the time, Abby Lowell,
hired a former FBI examiner, very respected in his field,
had him privately conduct a test for Mr. Condit.
The results of the test which were Mr. Condit was truthful
when asked, "Did you have anything to do
with Chandra Levy disappearance
or do you know where she is?"
It infuriated the police.
They said, "We will only be satisfied
by a polygraph conducted by our own examiner."
- The police weren't making any headway,
so Chandra's parents called on Gary Condit to come forward
with what he knew about Chandra.
Attorneys for the Levys and Gary Condit
arranged a private sit-down between Susan Levy
and the Congressman.
Susan says her husband was too distraught to participate.
- But I had to do what I had to do.
So I met him. It was so unreal.
It was hard, and I asked him various questions,
where so and so he was and...
He wanted to shake my hand and give me a hug afterwards.
I said, "Absolutely not."
- Susan Levy asked Gary Condit
if he knew where her daughter was.
He reportedly replied, "Mrs. Levy, I don't know;
really I don't."
But Susan has trouble recalling specifics of their meeting.
- My daughter was missing.
When you have tragedy like this,
it leaves you with PTSD.
Maybe that's why I don't little details.
- It's now been more than two months
since Chandra went missing.
With Condit ruled out, police continued
to pursue other leads while the Levys
ramped up their media campaign.
- I didn't think about the police.
I just knew, as a parent, it was important
to get the information out
and do whatever we can.
Went to New York, talked to many people there,
did five radio interviews, and just did whatever we could
to get the message out.
I don't think if it wasn't that Mr. Condit was involved,
I don't think we would have had all the cameras in front of us.
- We would get dozens and dozens of leads
daily, sometimes hourly.
There was the sheikh in the Middle East
who had a harem of prostitutes.
There was the homeless man
that's got her chained in a basement.
- You don't know where?
- We had so many suspects that proved to be just BS.
- People were afraid to share information
because they were afraid that anything said
was out there in the media five minutes later.
There's no trust of us.
No trust of the system.
My department, we had a very low closure rate
based on what the national average was
at the time.
They had brought in new upper management
to shake everything up.
There was an awful lot of pressure
to close cases quickly.
Police chiefs especially were doing things
based on what looked good for the department
rather than what was good for the investigation.
- In September 2001,
four months after Chandra's disappearance,
the course of the investigation
changed dramatically.
- The case seemed to be really revving up,
and then tragically we all experienced 9/11.
- Literally, that day on September 11th,
the camera trucks that were parked
outside the Levy family's house
just disappeared.
- We didn't have that advantage any longer
where we could keep this case alive in the media.
Then it became an issue of making sure
that we could keep the police department active on it.
- You know, 9/11 was such bad, terrible thing to happen.
The investigation was still going on.
We still hoped to find her alive.
- There's still no body.
It made the police department look bad
every day that it's out there.
They tried to do their best,
but the case just lingered and lingered.
- I had prevented myself from thinking,
"No, she's not murdered. She's kidnapped."
Now I'm thinking less that that's the possibility
and she probably was murdered by somebody.
- But were the answers right in front of them all along?
Coming up, what would it take to solve this mystery?
- In the months after 24-year- old Chandra Levy went missing,
the investigation into her disappearance stalled.
The story was no longer big news.
Congressman Gary Condit lost his reelection bid,
and Chandra's parents were still desperate for answers.
But they were also angry and frustrated with police.
That frustration could be traced back
to the very beginning of the investigation.
Early on, there were miscues
that may have impacted the case.
One of those involved the handling of Chandra's laptop.
- When the police first went to her apartment,
they found the computer was on.
- When the police returned with a search warrant,
the detectives went on her computer
to try to check her search history.
It turned out to cause problems later.
- According to court testimony,
during the second visit to Chandra's apartment
a little more than a week after she disappeared,
detectives accidently erased
Chandra's internet history on her laptop
losing details about her moves on the day she went missing.
- Detectives had basically two options:
they could go on, see if they could find something
that might help lead them to Chandra quickly,
or back then a typical forensics search of a computer
of this nature might take several days
so there would be a delay in getting that information.
- That delay proved to be costly
as police were forced to wait about a month
before learning the results of Chandra's online search.
- They were able to
reconstruct her search history,
sites she had gone to.
Her last visit was to Rock Creek Park.
Rock Creek Park, it's about 1,700 acres,
and it's more or less in the center of Washington, D.C.
It's a pretty wild, untrammeled area.
- After discovering the results
of Chandra's search history,
investigators returned to Rock Creek Park
to conduct a more intense search,
but there were problems.
- One of the many mistakes was an apparent miscommunication.
The Metropolitan Police Department was to search
was to search within 100 yards of all roads and trails.
That did not happen.
The police swept within 100 yards of roads
leaving unsearched trails in the park.
- For months there were no new leads or suspects.
Then in May 2002,
almost one year after Chandra's disappearance,
police finally caught the break they needed.
- I had hoped that she was alive for that whole year.
Most of them aren't found alive, but a few are
so still have hope.
- It's bad, bad...
the shock.
Can't relive it, it's already too hard, you know.
It's just...
Think about it, you got a big scar there, so...
- What police found
when they were summoned to investigate
was a Walkman, USC sweatshirt,
leggings, sports bra,
and a variety of bones.
- The crime scene techs go there,
and they do a pretty systematic search
trying to recover as much as possible.
Using dental records, they were able to confirm
that it Chandra's skull.
- It was clear to investigators
that Chandra's death was no accident.
- Some of the interesting things that were found
on the scene: her running pants,
her tights were tied.
The fact that they had the knots in them
does suggest that they were used to bind her.
And it also would suggest
that there was some kind of sexual assault that occurred.
- There was an autopsy performed,
and the manner of death was ruled homicide
based totality of all the circumstances.
- The crime scene provided clues,
but some key evidence was missed.
- Some point, I was asked to go back to the scene.
I noticed
that there were a lot of leaves on the ground.
Sort of a whim, I got a rake,
and I just started raking.
And within a few minutes, I found her femur bone.
It was that obvious.
I suppose they could miss it,
but...
I just don't know how.
- Even though the area was processed for several days,
later on they found that they did miss quite a lot
of her remains.
Searching an area like that in a crime like this
really takes a lot
of specialized skills and knowledge
- According to police, some male DNA was discovered
on Chandra's clothes,
but there was concern the sample
might have been compromised.
- MPD didn't have a policy back then
where if you work in a DNA lab
your DNA from you is in their system
because there could be contamination.
So just because you have unknown male DNA,
it could potentially have come
from one of the crime scene search technicians
who processed the scene,
anybody who handled the evidence afterwards.
- Investigators did conclude the DNA
did not belong to Gary Condit.
- They had taken a mouth swab of Congressman Condit.
It didn't match his DNA.
- According to court testimony,
that DNA sample has never been matched.
- They need to match it.
They have this new test,
but that's not going to bring her back.
We just have been sentenced to a life time of pain
and fracture in this house.
- Investigators were puzzled about how Chandra
ended up deep in Rock Creek Park,
four miles from her apartment.
They zeroed in on a theory
that Chandra was jogging in the park
when she was attacked by a sexual predator.
- The most probable sequence of events was that
Chandra had some time to kill.
She's getting ready to go home.
She looked on her computer,
was scouting out activities,
wanted to check out Rock Creek Park,
went for a walk or a jog,
and at some point, she was assaulted
and died of her injuries.
- Police looked at other crimes in Rock Creek Park,
and a new suspect emerged,
a convicted criminal named Ingmar Guandique.
- Ingmar Guandique came to this country illegally.
He had fled war-torn El Salvador.
He was poorly educated,
did not speak English very well,
was pretty much stuck at the bottom
of the American social ladder.
- Guandique had attacked two women
in Rock Creek Park within about a month
after Chandra went missing.
- Both were jogging.
Both were wearing Walkmen with earbuds.
Both successfully fended off the attack
and summoned the police.
Guandique was eventually charged with these crimes,
and he pled guilty
and was sentenced ten years in federal prison.
- Ingmar Guandique assaulted two young women
in Rock Creek Park
around the same time as Chandra disappeared.
Was it possible Chandra's killer was already in jail?
What would it take link Guandique to Chandra's murder?
- Then he would do a blitz attack,
just run up on them
and grab them.
- Nearly a year after the disappearance of Chandra Levy,
her body was discovered in Washington, D.C.'s
Rock Creek Park.
Police identified a potential suspect,
a felon named Ingmar Guandique.
Guandique was already in prison for assaulting two young women
in the same park where Chandra was found.
- He apparently would wait at one of the parking lots
in the park.
And if he saw somebody who he thought was a good target,
a woman on her own with headphones,
he would then follow them for some distance
until they were pretty isolated,
and then he would do a blitz attack,
just run up on them
and grab them and attack them.
- That premise seemed reasonable,
but according to court testimony,
there was absolutely no forensic evidence
linking Guandique to Chandra.
The case was stalled again
with no other suspects or plausible theories.
Until six years later, when a convict came forward
with a story about his former cellmate,
Ingmar Guandique.
- I got a phone call from an attorney
who said that he had a client who might have some information
about the Levy case.
And his client said that he was in jail
with a young man from El Salvador, Guandique.
He said Guandique confessed to him that he had attacked
and killed Chandra Levy in Rock Creek Park.
- The informant's name was Armando Morales.
- Armando Morales was a career criminal, a gangbanger.
Mr. Morales was cellmates with Ingmar Guandique
for three or four months in 2006.
- Morales said that Guandique attacked Chandra.
He waited for her in Rock Creek Park.
She was running through, and he stabbed her
and dumped the body.
- The police theory revolved
around the reasonable supposition that Chandra,
she had been attacked on a trail while jogging
either for purposes of sexual assault or for robbery
or for both.
There had been a struggle
and that she had been deposited down the hill.
- We had gone back
and looked Guandique.
He's attacking women in the park.
Are there any other people attacking women in the park?
None before and none after him.
So we had this short window.
- But there was a problem with the theory.
Chandra wasn't a jogger.
- Where her body was discovered was always a concern
because it just didn't fit her pattern.
And so in talking to her friends,
you learn that she was a very cautious person.
And she had told people that she was afraid of jogging alone
and going in Rock Creek Park.
- Her remains were found in a place
that she had no prior connection with.
She had pepper spray.
It was not on her person.
It was back at her apartment
when she disappeared.
- Bob gave her mace.
Evidently she didn't use that.
She didn't carry anything that day.
It's harder for me to believe that.
- Guandique seems like a good suspect,
but as you start to look at other things
and put things together,
suddenly he's not my suspect.
These women were attacked after the murder.
And so that would mean
that Guandique would have come back to the scene of the murder
to commit a couple of other crimes.
If he were to be arrested
for robbing,
he would become a prime suspect in a murder case.
- There were other issues with the story Armando Morales
told investigators.
- Morales said that
Guandique had attacked Chandra,
put the knife in it, and dumped the body.
- The medical examiner concluded
that Chandra was a victim of homicide,
but they did not determine definitively a cause of death.
To my recollection, there was no blood found,
and I don't believe there were knife marks.
- They went, and they re-interviewed the informant
and polygraphed him,
and then asked Guandique's attorneys
if he would take a polygraph which they agreed to.
And he did.
And the informant failed, and Guandique passed.
- When you go to jail,
if you're there for sex crimes,
you're kind of frowned upon.
But on the other hand, if you're there for a murder,
you're the hero.
Either the jailhouse informant made the story up
or Guandique actually told the story to give himself
what they call jail creds.
- Nevertheless, prosecutors went ahead
and charged Ingmar Guandique with first-degree murder
in the death of Chandra Levy.
Guandique pled not guilty to the crime.
- The prosecution had a very tough case to make.
There was no eyewitness.
There was no DNA evidence.
They had a jailhouse informant
who said that Guandique confessed to him,
and that was it for the case.
- They were thinking about Guandique a long time.
They saw a suspect because he was the only one who was
attacking women at that time that anybody knows about.
So... he really seemed to be guilty.
- Would the truth about Chandra's murder
finally be revealed?
And what would happen when the prosecution called Gary Condit
to the stand?
- In 2010, Ingmar Guandique was put on trial
for the first-degree murder of Chandra Levy.
The case was shaky.
No forensic evidence linked Guandique to the crime.
The media showed up in force.
- I was front and center for every single minute
of the Guandique trial.
It was explosive.
There was huge level of interest every day of the trial
never more so than the day when Mr. Condit himself testified.
- Mr. Condit anything you want to say?
- The prosecution summoned Mr. Condit to testify
for the purpose of getting him to deny under oath
having anything to do with Chandra Levy's disappearance
which is what he did,
and was driven by the recognition
that the defense was going to make Mr. Condit
out as an alternative suspect.
- The defense asked Condit
if he had an intimate relationship with Levy.
He replied, "I have already stated I am not going to
respond to those questions."
Condit testified he tried to get in touch with Levy
before she returned to California.
The jury heard voicemail messages he left
in the days following her disappearance.
- While Condit's testimony generated headlines,
the prosecution's case against Guandique
revolved around the informant, Armando Morales.
- Mr. Guandique was impassive through much of the trial.
He listened to it through a translator,
but did not react visibly to much of what happened,
including during the testimony when his former cellmate,
Armando Morales, ratted him out
and identified him as the murderer.
- According to court documents,
the prosecution presented a dramatic scenario.
- He sees Chandra jogging on the trail with a Walkman
so she may be oblivious to her surroundings.
He attacks her, and they struggle.
And they roll down the hill.
Chandra, in her dying breath lying on the ground,
looking up at the face of the man
who attacked her, Ingmar Guandique.
- The most significant issue that this case raises is
for the prosecution to contend
that Chandra jogged to her death
without any explanation.
This is way out on a horse trail.
The hill is so steep that the roads are S curves,
but the police didn't deal with how she would get there.
- The question in my mind has always been
why did the government go forward
on a guy like Guandique?
Why take him to court unless you had something
really, really good on him, not a jailhouse snitch.
How about blood on his shoes?
Or some sort of evidence that would link him?
The only thing that made Guandique a good suspect
to everybody was the fact that
his crimes occurred in Rock Creek Park.
- Nevertheless, the jury found Ingmar Guandique
guilty of the first-degree murder of Chandra Levy.
- After Mr. Guandique was convicted,
Mrs. Levy came to present to the court the impact statement
of what her daughter's murder meant to her,
and she was standing feet from the man who had been convicted
of killing her beloved daughter.
- Guandique doesn't speak English,
so that puts us all at disadvantage
because you use an interpreter.
I pointed to him and I said, "Did you kill my daughter?"
- Did not need an interpreter to hear or
to understand what she told him.
I believe Mr. Guandique said, "I feel sorry for your loss,
but I did not kill your daughter."
- I was happy he was convicted.
I thought, "Well, they got another rapist and murderer
off the streets."
- I said, "Well, they must know what they're doing."
But as a mother lion, I always had 2%, 3% of doubt,
and it always will be there.
- Ingmar Guandique was sentenced to 60 years
in prison for the murder of Chandra Levy.
Case closed.
Or so they thought.
- Guandique is packed off to a prison,
and that's the last we're going to hear of him.
Until about a year later when Fresno police are trying
to solve a couple of unsolved murders,
and the police detective finds a transcript
of an interview that Armando Morales, his former cellmate,
conducted with the Sheriff's Department
investigators looking into crimes in the Fresno area.
Mr. Morales had a record of informing to police,
and that was contrary to what he had testified.
And then that information had not been previously provided
to the defense.
- It turns out they did not vet him,
or if they did vet him,
they decided that they didn't need to turn it over
to the defense, which was a clear violation of the law.
- Ingmar Guandique was granted an appeal and a new trial,
but he never went to court.
In a stunning twist,
the prosecution dropped all charges.
So does that mean the case is closed,
or is there still a chance this mystery can be solved?
- In 2017, the man convicted of murdering Chandra Levy,
Ingmar Guandique, was released from prison.
Prosecutors dropped the charges after it was revealed
their key witness lied on the stand.
Guandique was deported back to El Salvador.
Gary Condit continues to maintain his innocence
regarding Chandra's disappearance.
With no new suspects, questions linger,
none more pressing than "What happened to Chandra Levy
on May 1, 2001, the day she vanished?"
- When you look at this case,
you have to ask yourself
"Why was she in Rock Creek Park?"
We've established that it is a rough terrain.
It's miles from her house.
She's afraid to run in the park by herself.
So the theory has to be
that she went there to meet somebody.
One thing I thought was rather significant was her blanket
was just inside of her front door.
Her apartment was very neat, orderly.
A blanket on the floor is out of place.
But just outside her door, there is a washer and dryer.
My thinking was that she got a phone call from somebody
that she wanted to meet.
And rather hastily she grabbed the blanket,
just threw it inside,
ran out, no phone, nothing else.
And that's why the blanket was there.
Just a theory.
- A few days after her internship ended,
Chandra called her aunt and left a telephone message
saying, "I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the summer.
I have big news to tell you."
It wasn't some kind of response
from her FBI application.
The "big news" message is one of the biggest puzzles
of Chandra Levy's disappearance.
- So will this mystery ever be resolved?
Chandra's family and friends are still looking for answers
as they treasure her memory.
In this footage that's never aired before,
we get a glimpse of the young woman
who touched so many lives.
- It's your pretty daughter.
- Okay, say "Happy Birthday" to your mother.
- Happy birthday.
- Tell her you love her.
- Oh, I love you. - Good.
- My daughter was going to make a difference in this world.
I know she could have made a difference.
- She's somebody who just had so much potential.
And so much life, and to have that taken from her,
is really--it's a tragedy.
- I don't think that anybody is actively looking
for who killed Chandra Levy.
For all purposes, the case is closed
at least with the police department,
certainly not with the family.
There's probably a credible witness out there
who knows something.
I don't expect them to come forward
at this point on their own.
- Yeah, I'd like someone to go back to it,
but it's not going to bring her back.
I wish someone would come out of the closet with truth.
That's the only reason I do this...
is to find truth...
and to warn other people.
- Families who've lost loved ones to violence
will tell you there is no such thing as closure.
The most they can hope for is resolution,
to know what happened and maybe why.
Until someone comes forward, the family of Chandra Levy
will continue to hold on to that hope.
For more on "Mysteries and Scandals,"
go to oxygen.com.